dave2198:SCUBA_Archer: I think I managed to catch the market just right. In 1989-90, I traded a Dale Murphy 1989 Upper Deck error for a 1986 Michael Jordan "rookie" card. Still have that card, need to get it graded some day.

I'd get it appraised soon, and sell it the day he dies. I know it's cliche, but a LOT of the yuppies on eBay buy things when people die, and at ridiculous prices.

They also bought the iron Monopoly piece for $20 when it was discontinued...

...and a box of Twinkies for $25 when it was announced they were closing... not realizing that they would likely come back.

Oh man candy collecting is crazy. Whenever there is a holiday edition on special edition type of candy released people will buy them up by the box, hold on to them for a few years and then sell them.

SCUBA_Archer:I think I managed to catch the market just right. In 1989-90, I traded a Dale Murphy 1989 Upper Deck error for a 1986 Michael Jordan "rookie" card. Still have that card, need to get it graded some day.

The problem is that even if the cards do go up in value, it doesn't matter because by the time they do it isn't that much money any more. When you are a kid, the idea that your Jordan rookie card will be worth fifty bucks is amazing....that's the most money ever! You'd have to mow yards for at least a whole summer, maybe more. By the time that card is actually worth fifty bucks, you are in your thirties and it is about one or two hours of salary, and will pay for half of a trip to the grocery store.

As far as the multi thousand dollar cards go, none of the shiat we all collected will ever be worth anywhere near that.

Magic is guilty of causing a lot of the same issues, but there are things that make it suck slightly less. For one thing, you can actually play a game with them, obviously. But also, there are certain cards that are actually unique and artificially rare that drive up the price. Finally, big factor is that Wizards has a system of making cards older than about 2 years ago ineligible for play in many formats, forcing the player base to move onto new card sets.

dave2198:I spoke to a local baseball card dealer last month, and he said he buys baseball cards from the 80's and 90's in bulk. He doesn't even sort through the cards. He buys them buy the pound. They're not even worth thumbing through, they're so ubiquitous.

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Just before the bubble burst (mid 90s) there were 4 or 5 card shops in this area (pop 60,000 give or take with a few suburbs thrown in). Now? Zero. Only place you can find cards is the occasional convo store or (I suppose) Walmart.

SCUBA_Archer:I think I managed to catch the market just right. In 1989-90, I traded a Dale Murphy 1989 Upper Deck error for a 1986 Michael Jordan "rookie" card. Still have that card, need to get it graded some day.

Early 90s Jordan cards (at least the special inserts) were, well, not gold, but they were very good for trading for something you really wanted. EVeryone wanted non-basic Jordan cards. I traded one (don't remember what it was, exactly) for an autographed Alonzo Mourning ball, which I wanted more than another Jordan card. I like(d) Mike and all, don't get me wrong, but after Larry Bird retired, I pretty much focused on 'Zo.

Fished an elite series frank thomas back in the day. Taught me some good negotiating skills by dealing with the local card shops. Value was 660 back in the day...1995. Now the card sells for about 30 accroding to ebay comps. "The other shop said they would give me more..." always use one against the other.

dave2198:Items made prior to the last half of the 20th century will always be more rare, and thus, more valuable, than similar items reproduced today, simply because people didn't hang onto everything back then. These items were also usually made of better materials (i.e. metal Lionel trains pre-WWII vs. plastic Lionel trains post-WWII).

Also, there were a lot fewer people in the population. Also also, fewer still could afford cool stuff. Just about anything from the 1930s is worth money, simply because so many people couldn't buy anything but daily necessities.

UNC_Samurai:miniflea: ole prophet: miniflea: What about my Star Trek the Next Generation CCG cards? How much are those worth? I have thousands of them in a box somewhere.

/nerd

Depends on the quality. Additionally, Book Value really means nothing compared to the population available. If you are the only person with a complete set or really nice cards, you may be surprised what they could bring.

If I recall correctly I am a hundred or so short of having every card from every expansion. One of these days I'll use ebay to exchange my duplicate rares for what I'm missing. The ones I have sleeved were mostly taken right from the packaging and never played with.

I doubt it would be worth much even as a complete set, for sure less than the nostalgia value to me.

The last time I looked (and this was a few years ago), a complete set of limited (black bordered) base set was worth something, and the Kivas Fajo collection and Data Laughing have generated enough interest in the Star Trek community at large that they have stable value.

I have about 1200 cards that I'm trying to get rid of - an 800 count box, a Two-Player starter box, and another small stack, plus about 200 cards from Fleer's TOS CCG (great mechanics, utterly putrid graphics). I've been lazy about listing it on ebay.

I have a few black bordered cards, although the complete base set I have is white border. It was so long ago that I don't remember what the deal was, but I do remember obtaining a Data Laughing through the original offer. I may or may not still have that card though, I vaguely remember not being able to find it. I've got a Fajo Collection that I picked up on ebay for way cheaper than they originally sold for, and I think I've got most of the "special edition" cards, although I may be missing a few of the "so and so of borg" cards. Other than that I'm mostly just missing rares that I didn't get in booster packs.

Man, now I want to dig them out, and I had so much that was going to get accomplished today.

I find it incredibly ironic that while everyone was chasing and speculating over sports cards, all that early Magic: The Gathering stuff ended up becoming the actual speculation gold mine. Which bears the point: The second you purchase something because you think it will be worth more, there's a thousand like you, and you're already screwed.

Mike_LowELL:I find it incredibly ironic that while everyone was chasing and speculating over sports cards, all that early Magic: The Gathering stuff ended up becoming the actual speculation gold mine. Which bears the point: The second you purchase something because you think it will be worth more, there's a thousand like you, and you're already screwed.

Well I have some early Magic the gathering stuff, but I used them for playing and not collecting, so not really worth much for collectors.

Oldiron_79:Well I have some early Magic the gathering stuff, but I used them for playing and not collecting, so not really worth much for collectors.

Well, that's the second step: Not only does nobody perceive the item is a collectible, but nobody was taking good care of the items, either. So there you go: Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited Magic: The Gathering stuff had this ridiculously low print run, and people lowered that supply by playing with the cards. Which beats having a bunch of people storing overproduced baseball cards in perfectly controlled storage conditions.

portnoyd:The largest growing collectible market right now is videogames. Prices on a lot of in-demand/semi-rare NES and SNES titles are doubling or tripling every year. It's crazy.

I'm still not sure what to make of that market, and believe me, it's a topic that I've given a lot of looking at. It seems to me that the regular items (i.e. desirable games with high print runs) are underpriced and the oddball items are overpriced. Fortunately, outside of consoles like the Sega Master System, the Sega Saturn, and the Neo Geo, the really good titles are still pretty easy to come by. We'll see how long that holds out. That generation has disposable income now.

Well I have a card that is worth like nothing to most people but is worth something to me, I have a signed rookie card for a guy I work with that was a MLB bench warmer back in like the mid 90s. Where I actually know and work with the guy it has a little sentimental value for me even though its probably not worth the cardboard its printed on.

I disposed of my baseballs cards at the right time, back in the late 80's. Paid for my first computer. That computer isn't worth much today, but the career trajectory it started me on is worth a couple bucks.

Mike_LowELL:I'm still not sure what to make of that market, and believe me, it's a topic that I've given a lot of looking at. It seems to me that the regular items (i.e. desirable games with high print runs) are underpriced and the oddball items are overpriced. Fortunately, outside of consoles like the Sega Master System, the Sega Saturn, and the Neo Geo, the really good titles are still pretty easy to come by. We'll see how long that holds out. That generation has disposable income now.

Check out Ebay. You can get a NeoGeo and games for $150-200. The prices on them tend to fluctuate though. A little more than a year ago they were selling for close to $1000 with a few games on Ebay.

Almost forgot. A good friend of mine had a HUGE collection of early, early Magic cards. He played when he was in the Navy and the closed shipboard environment meant that large amounts of cards changed hands, many of which he won (they played by the rules, you surrender your cards or something like that when you lose).

It was weeks before the release of the first wave of repros or something when he got back to the States. Sold every card he had. Bought a Eagle Talon with the proceeds. Nowadays, Magic: The The Gathering Online Exchange is the leading Buttcoin trading center.

Oldiron_79:Well I have a card that is worth like nothing to most people but is worth something to me, I have a signed rookie card for a guy I work with that was a MLB bench warmer back in like the mid 90s. Where I actually know and work with the guy it has a little sentimental value for me even though its probably not worth the cardboard its printed on.

I can't remember who said it, but to paraphrase someone else: "Collect what you think is valuable, not what others think is valuable." I collected baseball cards going through the late nineties and made the speculation mistake, and towards the end, I finally started tailing towards the sets with better aesthetic appeal. If it's worth something to you, that's what counts.

ongbok:Check out Ebay. You can get a NeoGeo and games for $150-200. The prices on them tend to fluctuate though. A little more than a year ago they were selling for close to $1000 with a few games on Ebay.

Cool deal, I haven't actually looked into it that much. I think I just assumed that the Neo Geo stuff would be very tough to find. Thanks. If push comes to shove, I've been genuinely considering the Neo Geo Gold X as a substitute, but I want that to drop down in price before going crazy on it. (I'm almost certain that thing will be on sale for cheap someplace. Too hardcore for the typical player, and the Neo Geo crowd already has what they want.)

machoprogrammer:GoldDude: My great-great-grandfather worked for the American Tobacco Company. We recently sold the house that had been in the family for generations. Cleaning out the attic I found a box marked "Recalled Honus Wager Cards". It looks like there's about a thousand or so in mint state, right-off-the-printing press. I wonder if this new supply source is going to affect the demand and/or auction prices?

Assuming you are telling the truth, that would be the biggest news in the collecting world possibly ever. And you would be a very rich person.

Alas, no 'tis not a true tale.But my point is that if I did make such a find, I would not have a thousand cards worth $2M each ($2.0B). So maybe the price collapses to $100K, and I've still got $100M worth of cards. But if I find 1M of these cards in a warehouse, then the price probably collapses to $0.39. At some point, it would make more sense to destroy any new cards found to maintain the low supply and the high price.

GoldDude:machoprogrammer: GoldDude: My great-great-grandfather worked for the American Tobacco Company. We recently sold the house that had been in the family for generations. Cleaning out the attic I found a box marked "Recalled Honus Wager Cards". It looks like there's about a thousand or so in mint state, right-off-the-printing press. I wonder if this new supply source is going to affect the demand and/or auction prices?

Assuming you are telling the truth, that would be the biggest news in the collecting world possibly ever. And you would be a very rich person.

Alas, no 'tis not a true tale.But my point is that if I did make such a find, I would not have a thousand cards worth $2M each ($2.0B). So maybe the price collapses to $100K, and I've still got $100M worth of cards. But if I find 1M of these cards in a warehouse, then the price probably collapses to $0.39. At some point, it would make more sense to destroy any new cards found to maintain the low supply and the high price.

Mike_LowELL:Cool deal, I haven't actually looked into it that much. I think I just assumed that the Neo Geo stuff would be very tough to find. Thanks. If push comes to shove, I've been genuinely considering the Neo Geo Gold X as a substitute, but I want that to drop down in price before going crazy on it. (I'm almost certain that thing will be on sale for cheap someplace. Too hardcore for the typical player, and the Neo Geo crowd already has what they want.)

Before you go for the Neo Geo X Gold, check out this review from Ashens.

A friend of mine brought out his Magic cards from 15-20 years ago to try out against my Eldrazi deck. After I destroyed him, he offered to give me his cards, as they seemed pretty useless. I decided to be nice and tell him how much his dozen or so Revised Dual Lands were worth...

Oldiron_79:machoprogrammer: Oldiron_79: I need to see what my baseball card collection is worth, I know it was worth quite a bit before the bottom fell out of the market during the 90s player strike. Most if not all of the players from the 80s and early 90s are retired now.

Also I have some like 50s/60s cards that was dads when he was a kid, I know some of those are worth money.

Most cards in the 80s and 90s aren't worth crap, unfortunately. I have a bunch in my parents house.

Well average Joe Schmuck cards from the '80s aren't worth money, I'm pretty sure that like a Barry Bonds Rookie card is worth some money,

Not really, maybe if its graded a 10, but they didn't short print rookie cards back then.

ongbok:DrBrownCow: Igor Jakovsky: The most expensive one I ever had was a '89 Ken Griffey Jr Upper Deck card. I collected when I was a kid in the '80s. My favorite player back then was Roger Clemens, I bet I had 50 of his early cards. I guess I picked the wrong horse to hitch that wagon too.

/Upper Deck was the shiat back in the day.

I was collecting at about the same time. I had a few of those Upper Deck Griffey Jr. cards and sold all but one of them for 50 dollars each ungraded. I wish I could say I took the money and invested it, but at the time I was in graduate school and needed gas money to drive home and see my girlfriend.

Those 80s and early 90s cards aren't worth jack. Most people won't even take them for free. I had about 20,000 cards. I went through them with a price guide, cherry picked the best cards and put them into one 5 inch binder. The rest of the cards I set out in a box in my alley the day before junk collection day and somebody took them.

And just for that reason when your grand kids are around 10 or twelve those 80's and 90's card will now be rare and worth some good money. And when you tell your grand kids that you had about 20k of them and threw them out, they will ready to kick your old ass.

ongbok:Adolf Oliver Nipples: ongbok: DrBrownCow: Igor Jakovsky: The most expensive one I ever had was a '89 Ken Griffey Jr Upper Deck card. I collected when I was a kid in the '80s. My favorite player back then was Roger Clemens, I bet I had 50 of his early cards. I guess I picked the wrong horse to hitch that wagon too.

/Upper Deck was the shiat back in the day.

I was collecting at about the same time. I had a few of those Upper Deck Griffey Jr. cards and sold all but one of them for 50 dollars each ungraded. I wish I could say I took the money and invested it, but at the time I was in graduate school and needed gas money to drive home and see my girlfriend.

Those 80s and early 90s cards aren't worth jack. Most people won't even take them for free. I had about 20,000 cards. I went through them with a price guide, cherry picked the best cards and put them into one 5 inch binder. The rest of the cards I set out in a box in my alley the day before junk collection day and somebody took them.

And just for that reason when your grand kids are around 10 or twelve those 80's and 90's card will now be rare and worth some good money. And when you tell your grand kids that you had about 20k of them and threw them out, they will ready to kick your old ass.

Things are different now. That was true when it was your dad with Mantle rookies, but everybody learned from that and they're all running the same hustle, hoarding cards in the hopes that they will appreciate. . Also, as mentioned, the million different sets overwhelm the market. It was enough to have Topps, Fleer and Donruss, then it got out of hand. now it's all just worthless cardboard, even more so than when your dad was collecting them. They will never appreciate to any significant degree.

The point is that those cards from the 50, 60's and 70's were rare because most of them didn't survive. And in the 80's and 90's people started hording cards and companies started printing them like they were money which cre ...

BakaDono:Before you go for the Neo Geo X Gold, check out this review from Ashens.

Hmmm, thanks for the heads-up. Eh. Guess it's time to be a hipster and buy the old stuff.

BakaDono:A friend of mine brought out his Magic cards from 15-20 years ago to try out against my Eldrazi deck. After I destroyed him, he offered to give me his cards, as they seemed pretty useless. I decided to be nice and tell him how much his dozen or so Revised Dual Lands were worth...

Yeah, I got into the game around 1997, so the era of high print runs was already in full force. The only card I own which really, really brings any value is a Gaea's Cradle. Hilariously broken thing. Good lord.

Mike_LowELL:BakaDono: Before you go for the Neo Geo X Gold, check out this review from Ashens.

Hmmm, thanks for the heads-up. Eh. Guess it's time to be a hipster and buy the old stuff.

BakaDono: A friend of mine brought out his Magic cards from 15-20 years ago to try out against my Eldrazi deck. After I destroyed him, he offered to give me his cards, as they seemed pretty useless. I decided to be nice and tell him how much his dozen or so Revised Dual Lands were worth...

Yeah, I got into the game around 1997, so the era of high print runs was already in full force. The only card I own which really, really brings any value is a Gaea's Cradle. Hilariously broken thing. Good lord.

I got in magic around the time it launched so Ive got cards from the first couple of editions I quit maybe a yar or two after you got in. The last time I broke out my deck to play with some whippersnappers a few years ago they was all like OMG you are playing with like Alpha and Beta stuff, that would be collectable if it was mint.

ongbok:MatrixOutsider: You can also thank Ebay for flooding the market with cards and lowering their value. Whatever happened to Renata Galasso anyway?

The market died even before that. Back in the day it was kids buying the cards, trading with each other to get cards to complete their sets, and playing all types of games with the cards that destroyed most of them. Between that and parents throwing out cards, not a lot survived and they were rare and collectable. Then in the 90's companies decided to cash in on this market and started producing premium card sets. These sets priced the kids out of the card market, and the buyers of cards went from kids that would destroy most of the cards to adults that bought cards, encased them in plastic and stored them. So now there really aren't anymore rare cards from probably 1990 on, even the cards that were purposely printed in limited quantities to create a rarity aren't rare because adults bought them all and stored them away.

Same thing happened to the early 90's comic book industry. One story about a sole-surviving issue from the 30'shiats the news when it fetches 5 figures at auction, and before you can say "market bubble", the publishers are re-launching titles with new #1 issues, selling multiple cover versions of the same comic or coming with extras like stickers or foil holograms and making sure they all come in plastic bags you can seal so they'll stay pristine and be worth something "someday". And since everyone and his brother bought that stuff convinced they were the only one smart enough to "hang on" to it convinced they could retire on the money they'd surely get for it in the far-off year 2001..... the result was predictable. Nothing from that era is worth more than the bag it's still stored in today.

Oldiron_79:machoprogrammer: Oldiron_79: I need to see what my baseball card collection is worth, I know it was worth quite a bit before the bottom fell out of the market during the 90s player strike. Most if not all of the players from the 80s and early 90s are retired now.

Also I have some like 50s/60s cards that was dads when he was a kid, I know some of those are worth money.

Most cards in the 80s and 90s aren't worth crap, unfortunately. I have a bunch in my parents house.

Well average Joe Schmuck cards from the '80s aren't worth money, I'm pretty sure that like a Barry Bonds Rookie card is worth some money,

One of the main reasons older baseball cards are worth something is because they are rare. There are only 50 Honus Wagner cards in existence. How many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Baseball cards are produced every year...and how many people are holding their cards thinking they will be worth something in the future? I know people who buy box sets, year after year. and have like 20-30 years worth of cards.

50 years from now (I think) there is still going to be a lot of cards in existence. Sure, that Barry Bond card will be worth something, but it's probably never gonna be that rare.....and thus never that valuable.

KFBR392:50 years from now (I think) there is still going to be a lot of cards in existence. Sure, that Barry Bond card will be worth something, but it's probably never gonna be that rare.....and thus never that valuable.

I have a couple shoe boxes stuffed with 79 Topps MLB cards. I'm sure there's nothing in there worth more than a buck or two, if that. But damned if I can't bring myself to throw them out. It's sentimental more than anything. Being 12 and getting a couple quarters together to go up to High's and pick up some baseball cards and maybe some candy.

I bought a few packs now and then as I got older, but nothing like back then when I thought I was "collecting". I think the most interesting card I remember getting was a Frank Thomas rookie card with him in his Auburn uniform. No idea if that is anything special.

Here's another T206 Honus Wagner that will be sold later this month--this one with a better story. It was once owned by Charlie Sheen, who loaned it to the All-Star Cafe in New York where it was stolen by a couple of chefs in the 1990s.

Ripken:Here's another T206 Honus Wagner that will be sold later this month--this one with a better story. It was once owned by Charlie Sheen, who loaned it to the All-Star Cafe in New York where it was stolen by a couple of chefs in the 1990s.

<cool story bro>Back in 1995 or so, I was teaching in a Twin Cities high school, and I saw a bunch of kids every day after class playing Magic for a few hours. The first time I sat down to play with them, they were still in that frame of mind where they played every card they owned. My first opponent dropped a stack of about 400 cards in front of him and said, "When I get through this stack, I'll get the next part of my deck from the box, okay?"Me, with my mostly well tuned 70 card deck: "You're not gonna get through that stack."

I got at least one teacher mad at me, but not for playing cards with students; I introduced her husband (another teacher) to the game, and he gave up his other hobby (yachting) for it.</csb>

GoldDude:machoprogrammer: GoldDude: My great-great-grandfather worked for the American Tobacco Company. We recently sold the house that had been in the family for generations. Cleaning out the attic I found a box marked "Recalled Honus Wager Cards". It looks like there's about a thousand or so in mint state, right-off-the-printing press. I wonder if this new supply source is going to affect the demand and/or auction prices?

Assuming you are telling the truth, that would be the biggest news in the collecting world possibly ever. And you would be a very rich person.

Alas, no 'tis not a true tale.But my point is that if I did make such a find, I would not have a thousand cards worth $2M each ($2.0B). So maybe the price collapses to $100K, and I've still got $100M worth of cards. But if I find 1M of these cards in a warehouse, then the price probably collapses to $0.39. At some point, it would make more sense to destroy any new cards found to maintain the low supply and the high price.

You could still make a lot of money, if you got... creative.

The price only drops once people realize there is an increased supply. If you eBay one card a week for a year, people will figure out the supply has increased. If you eBay one card, then private message every losing bidder, and tell each of them that the original buyer fell through, and that you'd like to sell them the card, you could probably sell 10+ cards per auction, at prices based on the earlier supply.